


over the river and through the woods

by FrenchTwistResistance



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:08:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21930643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchTwistResistance/pseuds/FrenchTwistResistance
Summary: Three different Feast of Feasts.
Relationships: Hilda Spellman/Zelda Spellman
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	over the river and through the woods

**Author's Note:**

  * For [UbiquitousMixie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UbiquitousMixie/gifts).

> Spellcest Secret Satan

There’s a bustle and a smell of cinnamon and pine. There’s also lemon cleaner and Father’s pipe. Cozy, safe smells and afternoon naps after the bustle.

The Feast of Feasts is an Occasion. And an Occasion is equal parts activity and inactivity, events punctuated by the absence of events—recreation in toto. It’s become an entertainment. A holiday. Whatever history and anxiety is there is the background to the enjoyment of the being together.

(Passover is about not being murdered. Purim is about not being murdered. There is precedence, at least.)

The house is clean, and the meal is prepared. The table is set with the best china and the best linens. Father is smoking his pipe, and Mother is wringing her hands. There are entrails nailed to the door.

At dinner, Father continues smoking his pipe. His plate is untouched. Mother continues wringing her hands. Her plate is untouched.

Hilda and Zelda sit opposite each other and look at each other rather than eat.

Edward swallows a mouthful of beef Wellington and then ventures,

“Well? Which of them is it, then?”

The Feast of Feasts is an Occasion, an Entertainment, a Holiday—until someone in a family is up for Queen.

“Our dear Hildegard,” Father says solemnly around smoke from his pipe.

“If you’ll excuse me—” Hilda says even as Edward chokes on his bite and Zelda says,

“For Satan’s sake!”

Hilda stands, pushes in her chair. 

She’s halfway up the stairs before Zelda catches up with her.

Hilda pauses at the landing, feels Zelda’s fingers at her elbow and coccyx, says,

“It’s not your fight. It’s mine.”

Zelda’s hands stay where they are, and her eyes find Hilda’s:

“You’ll need a handmaiden, though.”

Hilda scoffs, says,

“If I’m chosen as Queen.”

Zelda digs her fingers into Hilda’s hip and arm, says,

“You ought to have some practice. In case.”

They look at each other, and Hilda says tentatively,

“I ought to have practice with what, exactly?”

Zelda averts her eyes, clenches her fingers. 

Hilda feels points of pressure.

“Being served,” Zelda says quietly. “Being serviced,” Zelda whispers.

“Oh,” Hilda says. “That is what a queen deserves, after all. I guess.”

Zelda’s fingers dig into Hilda’s soft flesh. Zelda says,

“Yes.”

They look at each other again, and Hilda jerks away, continues her ascent.

Hilda is in her bedroom. She’s at the vanity taking out her bobby pins.

“A Queen requires so much,” Zelda says. She’s standing at the threshold.

“I’m not Queen yet,” Hilda says.

“That Queen anyway,” Zelda says, voice barely audible.

“Excuse me what?”

“Nothing,” Zelda says as shuts and locks the door. She crosses the room, appears behind Hilda, begins unbuttoning her dress.

“You don’t have to—”

“Shush. You’re practicing.”

Their eyes meet in the mirror, and Hilda nods, and Zelda continues disrobing her.

“Thank you,” Hilda says into the mirror, the reflected image of herself in just chemise and drawers stark and pale against the reflected image of Zelda in her green silk gown.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Zelda says. “Would you like me to run you a hot bath?”

“I just want to go to bed.”

Zelda raises her eyebrows at that, and Hilda belatedly realizes her error. Or is it an error?

“I—” Hilda starts, but Zelda’s hands are on her shoulders, under the chemise, pushing gently.

“Shush,” Zelda says. “You’re practicing.”

Hilda is soon nude and laid out atop her quilt. She raises up on her elbows, says,

“I don’t want it if it’s obligation.”

Zelda unlatches the cameo at her throat and rubs her thumb over the ivory, says,

“All this time I thought you’d seen me.”

They look at each other.

“I have seen you,” Hilda says.

They look at each other again. And Hilda lies back, says,

“I could use the practice.”

Hilda lies there on her bed, holding her breath. She thinks she’s misinterpreted, miscalculated. She thinks she’s very stupid indeed. But then there is a fluttering softness at her left shin, low near her ankle. And a breathy voice,

“Yes. You could use the practice.”

Hilda looks up and sees Zelda. Zelda is suspended above her, panting, looking as though she doesn’t know where to begin. Hilda watches as Zelda runs her hands over both her tibia at once. Zelda pauses at her knees and circles them, ghosting fingertips. And then her hands are on Hilda’s quadriceps, caressing and moving up and up. Zelda sighs as she explores. Zelda watches her own fingers on the pale expanse of Hilda’s thighs.

“Yes,” Hilda says. “I could use the practice. But what use is practice if it’s never used?”

“Don’t act like you know anything,” Zelda says. Her hands slide up Hilda’s thighs and grab her hips. Zelda’s fingers dig in and then possessively pull. Zelda’s mouth is now at Hilda’s center. Tongue working athletically, outside, inside, here, there. And just so just there. Hilda says,

“I know nothing but this!”

And Zelda continues and continues, fingers arching and aching at Hilda’s hips.

“So?” Zelda says afterward. “Ready? To be Queen?”

Hilda turns over in Zelda’s embrace.

“No. I’d still rather not.”

“Maybe you need more practice.”

“I’m not sure I would survive it,” Hilda says.

XXX

The Feast of Feasts is still an occasion. But like so many occasions over so many years and so many losses, the tone has changed, and the preparation has changed. The look is different, and the feeling is different. The smells are different.

Edward’s on a fellowship in Romania. He’s taken his charge. So it’s just the sisters, alternately running into each other and the ghosts of occasions past.

Hilda insists on a tree, but it’s silver tinsel now. Zelda does most of the cleaning, but it’s not lemon spray but something totally synthetic and antiseptic and foreign.

They don’t take afternoon naps. It’s less a burst of bustle and then detente than a continuous sustained bustle. And neither can articulate why this might be preferable. Maybe they’re trying to outrun themselves or each other. Busyness is preferable to silence.

But there are entrails nailed to the door, and they sit across from each other at the table, set with the best linens and the best china.

Hilda pushes food around on her plate and finally slides it away from her and fixes her frosted lipstick.

Zelda, for her part, has at least tried to eat the tofu. But now she also slides it away and readjusts her white headband.

“I don’t know why you’re so upset,” Zelda says. “You’ve been trying to find a way to get rid of me for years.”

Hilda rolls her eyes and takes their plates to the kitchen. She’s scraping them into the trash as Zelda stands and straightens her vinyl miniskirt, saunters over.

“If you loved me at all, you’d indulge me tonight. It might be one of my last nights on this mortal plane.”

Hilda rolls her eyes again but then says,

“You know how I feel about this sort of exploitation. But you’re up for Queen, so I guess it’s my duty, isn’t it?”

“You don’t have to. If you don’t love me, that is.”

Hilda looks up at her, says,

“I’m not buying you a lap dance.”

“We’ll see. You have different ideas about morality after a few vodka tonics.”

It’s dark, mostly. Just enough track lighting and neon to discern the individual poles.

Zelda’s in front of a woman with extravagant pasties.

Hilda’s already witnessed a woman fire ping pong balls out of her crotch. 

Hilda leans over to Zelda, says,

“Have you had enough yet?”

“No,” Zelda says. “It’s my night. And I’d like to see something that appeals to me.”

“Fine,” Hilda says.

Honky tonk piano, a follow spot, and now. A full-figured blonde dancing an old-fashioned hoochie coochie. Zelda is enraptured.

“Finally,” Zelda breathes.

“Are you serious?” Hilda says.

They look at each other. Zelda says,

“As a grave.”

The woman gyrates, and Zelda slips a dollar into her g-string. Hilda watches this and orders another vodka tonic.

The woman can rotate her tasseled nipples opposite each other. Her open eyes and open mouth can entice and incite. She knows her body and can use it to her advantage.

“Where do you think she learned all that?” Hilda says.

“Not my business,” Zelda says.

“Isn’t it though?” Hilda says.

Zelda orders another whiskey, and Hilda orders another vodka tonic.

They’re behind a partition. A darker dark. A lap dance is imminent.

“You don’t feel guilty at all?” Hilda says.

Zelda grabs her, hoists her onto her lap. 

They look at each other.

“Why should I?” Zelda says. “You’re not buying me a lap dance. You’re giving me one.”

“And we couldn’t have done this at home?”

Zelda’s fingers burrowing. Hilda’s gasp.

“Sell me a fantasy,” Zelda says.

XXX

There is a bustle, both furious and tentative.

One might think the Feast of Feasts should be an occasion with all the family together. It certainly has been more often than not. But Zelda’s prepared the house, and Hilda’s miscalculated her trip to South Dakota to buy custom caskets. When a life is so long, even the monumental events seem to shift. 

There is no time, just thing after thing.

Edward is here this time, and so is his charge. (Zelda and Hilda both have their own guilt about preferring Ambrose to their own brother.

But that’s background to their current feelings. They are apart and miss each other.)

There are entrails nailed to the door.

“I’ve been chosen,” Zelda says over a crackly connection. Mortal long distance.

“I need to see you. Really see you,” Hilda says.

Zelda licks her finger and drags it along the edges of her mirror. 

Hilda’s mirror reciprocates.

They look at each other.

“Here you are,” Zelda says. “You are here. And it’s all I’ve needed.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I trust you and love you anyway.” 

“Good enough for me,” Zelda says.

Hilda scoffs. And Zelda watches the way her neck works upon a scoff.

“What prurient thing do you want from me this time?” Hilda says.

“You’re the one who insisted on ‘seeing’ me.”

“Fair.” Hilda adjusts on her motel comforter. “Get naked.” 

Zelda gapes for a second and then her fingertips find the hem of her slip.

“That’d be too easy,” Zelda says.

Hilda turns out her nightstand lamp, settles into the too-many, too-stuffed pillows, says,

“And you’d know all about too easy.”

They look at each other across the many miles, across the mirrors, across each other.

“If you didn’t like too easy you wouldn’t have called me,” Zelda says as she drags the slip up.

Hilda’s right hand has disappeared under her cotton nightgown.

“Maybe I just need the practice,” Hilda says.


End file.
